


Blue collar/code switching B Shitty Knight

by LaBelleIzzy



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Class Issues, Dialect, Gen, Headcanon, Languages, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 16:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21256430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaBelleIzzy/pseuds/LaBelleIzzy
Summary: Notes about a favorite headcanon of mine, part of Why Shitty Is The Way He Is.





	Blue collar/code switching B Shitty Knight

Headcanon: Shitty talks in a blue collar Bahston accent because it's infuriating to his parents, but he can code switch with the most fluent. 

He code switches at home mostly to piss off his parents and he talks familiarly to his dad's valet, the doorman, the family's cook. Shitty knows them and their kids, families, hobbies. 

Shitty talks mostly blue collar around the Haus, but when he's going on one of his intersectional feminist rants? There's this weird blend of accents going on, because he gets so enthusiastic or angry that he doesn't strictly control how he's speaking. 

When he's relaxed with Jack or Bitty or Lardo, his earlier elocution comes creeping back in… part of why he calls everyone BRAH all the time is performative in a publicly social situation, intending to be inclusive, friendly, Everyman, but it's his public mask. 

When Shitty tells Lardo to “give him the chop” he's got more of the Brahmin accent going on, because he's so upset that his family's forcing him to give up something harmless he enjoys, for conformity or a power play. Do this or I won't love you, his grandparents say, clear as day. 

And he's barely 21 when he gets into Harvard Law, and Shitty's been trying his whole life to get his family to love him. He loves them in ways that he finds meaningful, but they don't speak his love languages. (Touch and Words) they probably almost all speak Gifts, which is his least important love language...

Shitty has been trying to tell them about the important things in his life, in his heart, and in his mind, for his whole life. And his dad for one, has always blown him off, unless his dad has something that he needs Shitty to do. And then if Shitty doesn't do it perfectly, his dad sneers and then ignores him.

Shitty's grandparents expect him to be their mini-me. His enthusiasm always falls flat with them. By the time he's fourteen or fifteen he's basically given up on trying to please them as they want to be pleased, but it doesn't hurt any less when they tighten the leash as an attempt to control his behavior. 

Home is stifling, and whenever Shitty has tried to fling a window open, someone is right behind him, slamming it shut. 

Haus is where Shitty can be himself, as weird as he wants, as loud and enthusiastic as he wants, as physically affectionate and as opinionated as he wants. And wonder of wonders: the boys and Lardo not only hear him but LISTEN.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to do more with this but the depression is pretty bad recently and the HMO assigned therapist basically blew me off re depression and ADHD. Gonna re-engage with my therapist after I come back from my trip with the Spouse and after my 50th birthday, which is coming up at the end of November.
> 
> So this is my gift to you today, in advance of my birthday. Because really I am a Hobbit and like to give presents to my friends. More of this later, someday, I hope!
> 
> Also happy Halloween!


End file.
